Explosives in East Village Cemetery Initially Thrown Away for Looking Like "Movie Prop"

Following up the strange story of the C4 explosives found in the East Village's Marble Cemetery that basically shut down 2nd and 2nd yesterday, we have a familiar public service lesson: If you see something, say something, especially if that something resembles explosives (even if they do look like they're really old, and maybe fake.) Do not, as one cemetery board member did, just toss them in the trash.

"We thought it was like a movie prop," Mr. Knox said. "It was sort of crumbly, the plastic was coming off. It clearly said explosive on it, but it had been outside for so long that the plastic was sort of delaminating."

The bricks were individually wrapped in plastic and had green and yellow military-style markings, but it did not cross their minds that they were real, Mr. Knox said. "I said, 'Why don't you just throw it out?' " he said. "And so he carried it over to the front of the gate, where we throw our garbage." That night though, the volunteer, whose name has not been disclosed, had second thoughts and on Monday morning, he called the police, Mr. Kelly said.

If there is some justification here, it goes to the strange (in New York) isolated sanctity of the Marble Cemetery, where a bomb plot really would make no sense anyway, as the people are already dead, with copious quiet interludes for second or third thoughts. Plus, it's peaceful in there! We'd have a much easier time believing a bomb plot in, say, Times Square. Of course we would.

Anyway, police don't think the explosives are part of a terror plot, particularly as no detonating devices were found. How the explosives got in the cemetery are still a mystery. The NYPD is investigating a possible connection to the Hell's Angels, but if this were a movie, they'd clearly be the too-easy scapegoat proven wrong by the twist in the end.